Program

Apr 18, 2012

Inside Hana's Suitcase

In Honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 18 Menemsha Films Presents the
New York Premiere of “INSIDE HANA’S SUITCASE”.

In honor of Yom Hashoah,
Holocaust Rememberance Day, Menemsha
Films is pleased to present the New
York theatrical premiere on April 18 of the acclaimed
film INSIDE HANA’S SUITCASE,
directed by Larry Weinstein and based on the internationally best-selling
book Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine,
which has been translated into 40 languages.

In 1999, Fumiko Ishioka, director of the Tokyo
Holocaust Museum, visited Auschwitz.
Shaken to the core by her direct experience with the site,
she asked for materials to help Japanese children understand the
Holocaust. The delivery of a simple,
battered suitcase to Fumiko ignited international curiosity in the true-life
mystery about one little girl that unfolds in this beautifully crafted and
meticulously researched film. The suitcase came from the Auschwitz Museum and was crudely painted with the
words “Hana Brady, May 16, 1931,”
and “Waisenkind,” the German word
for orphan. Larry Weinstein?s masterful documentary work follows Fumiko?s
search to discover the details of Hana?s life,
leading to the discovery of her living brother George in Toronto. As small children Hana and
George had been sent to the Terezin concentration camp after the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia
in 1939. After each was transported to Auschwitz, George survived but his little sister Hana did
not. This is their story, told
through the voices and innocent perspectives of modern day children in the Czech Republic,
Canada and Japan who
unravel Hana’s mystery for themselves in this one-of-a kind homage to the
astonishing power of artifact and history.

INSIDE HANA’S SUITCASE will open in New York at the Quad Cinema, 34 W.
13th St.,
on Wednesday, April 18. The
film will also open on April 18 at the Kew Gardens Cinemas, 81-05
Lefferts Blvd., Kew Gardens, NY and Malverne Cinema 4, 350
Hempstead Ave., Malverne, NY.